Civilization #20: The Proto-Buddhists of the Indus Valley Civilization

okay so good morning we finished a branch age today with the indis valley civilization so we've done Egypt we've done Mesopotamia now we're doing the in valley civilization and today I'm going to look at three questions okay first of all what is it that makes in this Valley Civilization distinct or different from other civilizations second is why did it decline uh they reached their Pak about 2600 to 1900 uh BCE and then for the next 3 to 400 years they declined and ultimately disappeared okay why did that happen now last question is what is their legacy uh what is their contribution to uh development of Western Civilization okay all right so let's um look at viness Value civilization to do so we need we need to First understand the world at this time and this about 2500 to uh 2000 BC okay this this is what we call the middle bran age because most people were using bronze for weapons for tools um so over here is Egypt and as we discussed by far Egypt is the wealthiest most advanced civilization in the Bronze Age um over here here across the Red Sea is Arabia okay and even though Arabia isn't really discussed that much um in world history it's still significant because it's part of the trading Network okay so the Arabia it's many Nomads uh who take goods from Mesopotamia over to Egypt and then into the Mediterranean which accesses all of Europe um this is um uh summer which is the beginning of the Mesopotamian civilization okay up here is Anatolia the lavant um and then the in Valley Civilization is over here and today um it would cover the the countries of Afghanistan Pakistan and Northwest India okay what makes in in this valy civilization important is um it's really by the coast which allows it to access uh Mesopotamia and Egypt okay meaning during the bronch Age these three civilizations Egyptians Mesopotamians and the IND Valley Civilization were heavily interconnected through trade and um in this Valley Civilization um what they what was unique to them are certain products for example Indigo th which was really sought after in Mesopotamia and in Egypt um their handicrafts their jewelry were also very famous throughout uh the world um they usually traded with Sumer and Egypt by trading with the Gulf State nations of barin and Oman and Dubai okay and they actually had a colony by the the Persian Gulf right uh this civilization was so good at trading that we believe they even traded with China okay which is pretty far away but their ships were were were huge and they were very good Navigators um as the Bron Jes develop over time um bronze was in heavy demand and the main components of bronze are copper and Tin Tin is mainly found in the mountains of Afghanistan over here okay which meant the IND valley civilization start to now expand over to Afghanistan in order to access the tin trade okay so tin was really s after but there's also another um stone called lapis laula which is really sought after by the Egyptians for its like spiritual and aesthetic qualities okay and over here um because of the trade uh with a Afghanistan land routs start to develop into Anatolia and mes Mesopotamia okay and as well because of this trade in Afghanistan um neutralization start to develop as well and they're not as advanced as large as a three major ones but they're still pretty Advanced so for example up here is what we call uh the Oxys Valley Civilization the technical term used by archaeologists are the ban Mar Marana archaeological complex you don't have to know this okay it's called bmac what makes this civilization important is interacts it interacts with the steps people okay called the jual culture so as you can see Den Valley Civilization through its Partners uh the oxis valley civilization um and its colonies over here now trade with the entire world there's no piece of the Western World in valy Civilization does not touch okay does that make make sense so this is a world about 2500 to 2,000 BCE it's a world that's heavily interconnected and there are two major sources of demand uh the Egyptians are extremely wealthy and they want these valuable jewelry and hog grass for their burials okay that's one source of heavy heavy demand the main source source of demand is actually Mesopotamia where the city states of Sumer are fighting Wars against each other and in war bronze makes a huge difference because bronze armor um is more it's much more stronger than copper armor okay so these two places are driving demand and as such the indan valley civilization is going wealthy through trade okay does that make sense any questions so far before I continue okay so even though the IND Valley civiliz is connected with Egypt and Mesopotamia it's a radically different civilization okay so the first thing uh that makes IND Valley Civilization interesting is it's a huge area it's actually in terms of size larger than Egypt and mesia combined it has a population of at at its peak about 5 million people okay so this is a huge area what really interest interesting is we have found no evidence of any organized Warfare in this region during this time the reason why is this region is connected through trade okay so what we have found is five major Urban centers in the indust valy civilization and these Urban centers you can consider to be what we call Value adding processing centers okay these are Urban centers that specialize in taking raw Goods like metals and um agricultural products and turning them into finished products like jewelry handy crafts to be shipped to be traded with mainly M spania but also Egypt and possibly China as well it also goes north to to the Oxy Valley Civilization which then trades with the step people the engine of culture okay what we know as the yaya people right so um this Trade Network um it's very very complex and everyone is involved in some capacity in this Trade Network okay so that's the first thing that's interesting about the um IND Val civilization they trade internally peacefully they trade externally peacefully as well we have absolutely no evidence that they ever had organized Warfare we have actually no evidence that they have any intention of organized Warfare meaning we have not found any weapons we have found tools we found uh hunting weapons we have not found like maybe armor and helmets okay yeah is there any particular reason that we can speculate that there is no organized War yeah great question so how do we know there's no organized Warfare so we know there's a lot of organized Warfare in Mesopotamia and other places because because of what of what we um have dug up so we look at cities we see parts of the city that have been built on top of or destroyed meaning um there might have been some fires or there might have been some Warfare okay but with with these five centers that we dug up we have we have found them pretty intact meaning they were not built on top of or they were not destroyed uh during the pro when they were around okay so that's the first major piece of evidence the second major piece of evidence is uh We've dug up their graves so if you look at um maybe the civilizations of the oval culture or Mesopotamia they tend to bury warriors with their weapons okay so uh um you know helmets and armor but we when we f up the IVC culture people first of all we don't find a distinct cast of Warriors also we don't find any helmets or armor or weapons okay so that's what led us to believe they don't engage in organized Warfare but there's also evidence to suggest our evidence is not solid okay the first piece of evidence is they don't bury their dead um these people don't have a tradition of burying they're dead some are buried okay but they but not everyone is buried um second of all we don't know where they buried their dad we assume they buried their dad uh in the cities but that may not be true okay so um the evidence leans towards there were peaceful civilization but as we dis as we dig up more and more over time we may discover this was not true okay but the right now the evidence suggests they were peaceful and also what's really important about the um IVC the in Valley Civilization is this is a new discovery we've only know known about them for the past 100 years so what's interesting is the Indians themselves never knew they existed it was the British who discovered these cities and started um the work in AR in archaeology to start to um reconstruct their civilization okay all right but thanks for the question okay so um as I said uh what's F the first thing that's interesting about the civilization is it was it was relatively peaceful okay compared with what's happened in Mesopotamia the second thing that was interesting for us is and surprising is for a very large civilization they are egalitarian okay meaning in Mia when we look at these old cities ER and iic there were these huge palaces and temples which suggested um a a con of power in the priesthood and in the king okay but when we look at these five Urban centers of the IVC there are no there are no palaces there are no um temples okay in fact these cities are extremely well-designed there are these walls around the city and then as you go into the city you're able to access every single part of the city but if you were to go into a city say in Sumer if you go into the city you're only able to access the temple or the palace okay so Authority is centralized in in Sumer whereas Authority is sort of decentralized in um the IVC now here here's a question if we know if we suspect they are not engaged in Warfare why do they have walls why would there there a lot of walls inside these cities why there walls can anyone guess okay Customs taxes okay meaning this is again a value added adding processing center and the way they survive economically is by collecting tolls and Customs on people who trade and the the way they collect taxes is when you enter the city um you have to go to the customs house and then you pay whatever um is required of you and then you can access a city okay and that's the way they Central centrally controlled uh the economy and trade in the IVC uh these cities are amazing these are the first people to invest the seat toilet the private seat toilet this is about the year 2800 BC okay so if you when you go into these cities you'll find that in private homes everyone has a private toilet and then the fees is put into a switch system and the water flushes it out okay that's that's pretty amazing uh these are people who are very concerned about the wellbeing of all its citizens so when we look at skeletal remains through DNA analysis we've discovered the the majority of the people ate about the same high quality of food okay there wasn't these disparities uh between people as you would find in other civilizations at least half the people we think live past the age of 55 that was an amazing achievement uh back then in terms of ation they have reservoirs okay they also have public baths they also had really amazing things called wind towers I'm not I'm not sure if you've studied these wind towers but they're basically air conditioners what they do is um these are high towers and there's a um hole on top right so what happens is um the higher the air is the cooler it is right so this wind that's cool gets Into The Wind Tower it comes down and it pushes out the hot air from the other side and this is what cools the houses um in the summer okay this is a pretty advanced technology another really cool thing about the IBC is even though it covers a huge area they have standardized weights and measurements okay they have standardized weights and measurements which means that every brick that they have have is the same size which means that their buildings their their structures are extremely uh stable and resilient that's why 5,000 years later we still have their cities intact okay you can actually go to the cities and live in them that's how that's how um stable the technology was okay so this is a pretty um Advanced civilization unfortunately we don't know what their writing system is okay so if they had writing and we don't we can't know for sure if they had writing it was like Chinese an idic language meaning it is not phological they're speaking the spoken language is not the same as the written language in other words it is impossible for us to to decipher their written language we don't have that um many artifacts of writing we have seals with um characters uh written on them but we don't have anything else and the reason could be uh if you look at Egypt they use Papyrus okay and Papyrus is stable or it keeps in a dry Egyptian a okay if you look at uh saman culture mesan culture they use can form on Clay Tage which keeps forever okay but if they had a writing system and they did write it would be on Palm leaves which degrades very easily in the jungle um a okay so we don't have access to their writing this is problematic because without access to the writing we don't have access to the religion we don't know what the religion is and one thing that you've learned in this class that's very important is religion or mythology it is the operating system of the culture okay it is the collective Consciousness the collective worldview that gives life to their culture it explains why they do what they do and unfortunately we don't know their religion okay but so it's a complete mystery to AR archaeologists to Scholars as to why this very Advance civilization was very peaceful and very egalitarian we can only speculate right any questions so far before I continue okay so um I'm going to speculate as to why they were peaceful and egarian um so what so again the key is the religion what is the religion because that will give us Clues as to their mentality their value system right we know that the mesop people they're religion focus on struggle and achievement we know that the Egyptians their religion focus on the afterlife okay uh this life that we live is we it it the the what what's important is not the Here and Now what's important is what happens afterwards okay that's and that's why the Egyptians built a pyramid that's why they focus so much on funeral rights and on baral Goods all right so there had to be religion if in the IBC that was different from the belief system in Sumer in Egypt that made it into a peaceful inat um uh civilization okay all right so what is this religion and why were they different my speculation is this the key is to understand that this is a civilization based on trade and they've been traitors um ever since they were born as as a culture meaning they were trading for at least 7,000 8,000 years before they became a civilization okay and if you're a Trader um first of all you're able to access the entire world so we know for a fact they traded with Sumer and the Persian Gulf States because we have we have um artifacts from the IBC in these places okay we know for a fact we can speculate it they also traded with Egypt and with China just based on their technology and um their trade networks so this is a civilization based on trade and as as Traders they're able to see what's going on in Mesopotamia and Egypt they know they built the pyramids in Egypt they know there's massive Warfare in Sumer and I would think that if you were a Trader and you saw these things you wouldn't be impressed okay in fact you might might be disgusted especially by the Warfare in Mesopotamia this is the idea called the dialectic right and I think this is a very important idea for us to appreciate how history is often driven by the idea of the dialectic so an example that we have in today's world is you look at Japan and China okay these are two radly different societies that are next to each other and the question then is why are they still different I think the answer is because Japan knows China very well and a lot of cultural practice um Japan developed over over uh the centuries have been in response to what they see as failings or successes in Chinese culture okay another example that um Doug will appreciate is Canada and United States the United States is probably the most belligerent nation in the world okay they cannot get their hands off anything and then you go north Canada and you know can United States share the world's longest border basically Canadians are cousins of the of of the Americans okay I mean like there's really no difference we speak the same language we have the same cultural practices um but while Americans are the most beligerent Nation ever in human history Canadians invented peacekeeping okay the idea like Nations should strive for meditate for uh mediation and and peace okay and I think a lot of Canada a lot of Canadian values uh espe especially its political system is in response to what it believes to be failings and successes in the American model okay you also have New Zealand and Australia so there are many different examples of of the dialect going on in our Global political systems and I believe that's what happened with the IBC where these Traders saw what's happening in Egypt and saw what's happening in Mesopotamia and they were kind of disgusted especially by all this Warfare in uh madania okay um Warfare back then was pretty awful and so in mesia the way they fight is they fight with these um clay bullets okay and you take you take a slingshot and you throw it at someone and these things kill they hurt so think of David and Goliath okay and if you're a traitor um you know you'll see this Warfare going on you'll see people being U beheaded and why are they doing this they're doing it in the name of God okay every city state has a patron God that it believes it must defend uh and honor and protect and whenever whenever there a there's a dispute it's because they feel their God has been Dishonored by another city state so they go to war and they kill each other okay and again if you're a traitor and you see this you don't think this is a good thing um and you go to Egypt and you see these pyramids and these pyramids are again extremely impressive but at the same time you also see the consequences of these pyramids which is this massive inequality massive corruption just massive waste all right so I think think that by trading with these two civilizations and other civilizations um it reinforces the Deep cultural values of the IVC people and it and it basically compels them towards peace and egalitarianism okay that's what I believe happened all right now you could there there are other arguments uh for example maybe um uh these people are just genetically p peaceful and egalitarian but I've made the argument in this class that from the onset of early human history we were peaceful inal people but uh different Geographic circumstances change our Outlook okay so for example uh the people in the steps who we call the Anni people because of the grasslands because it is such a poor and rugged and unforgiving environment they're forced to be calor ranchers they're forced to engage in calor okay and over time their culture became very aggressive expansionist and opportunistic opportunistic just means they'll do whatever it needs to survive if they face a um they'll trade with people if it if it's that if that's what benefits them they'll kill people if that's what benefits them they are not that moral okay they're very opportunistic and and and I remember as I said these people with their cultural values would go in and Conquer All of Europe in about 200 300 years okay and they what called the yayah people back in the steps these y people continue to evolve over time and over time they became even more aggressive more expansionist and more opportunistic okay eventually the Mongols gangas K Mongols will um come from the civilization okay so that's my argument to you and again uh it's my speculation it is because of their interaction with other cultures that convince them to pursue a peaceful and Ne lifestyle now there are still inequalities in IBC we know there are classes we know there's wealth inequality but relative to Mesopotamia and Egypt it was a real it was a relative L peaceful and egalitarian society okay okay any questions before I continue okay so the question is with they invaded uh the IVC okay because as we discussed um in previous classes when you're peaceful in a g Society we know that Old Europe okay before the amni invasion was a peaceful and Society you will eventually get invaded by other cultures okay and for the longest time um there was a theory out there uh first proposed by uh basically the Nazis okay called the Indo Aran Invasion the idea is you have these white people sweep into India conquer the people and introduce civilization to the Indians okay this is called The indoan Invasion even though this theory has been discredited there is a slight kernel of truth to this Theory okay which I will explain to you okay so let me explain this Theory and what happened so you have the IVC which is a very Advanced civilization the problem with the civilization is their entire economy is especially based on trade right now we know in about uh there something called the um 4.2 kiloyear event which is which is basically a massive climate change around the world and the 42o year kilo killer event brought basically an end to the Egypt o Kingdom right it also brought an end to what we call the Acadian Empire in Suma a man named Sargon of aad conquered all of Sumer and built a Canan Empire and because of this of this drought because of climate change there his Empire collapsed okay so in other words trade networks that the obviously heavily dependent on um start to collapse okay and as a result there cities now which are dependent on trade start to uh depopulate meaning a lot a lot of people start to return to the Farms where they are from they start also uh migrating uh to the rest of uh India to the Ganges okay as well because of this climate change they have itself is being affected heavily okay so there's drought um the rivers are drying up remember like the IND Valley Civilization it's called the IND Valley Civilization because it's dependent on the indis river among other rivers okay so there are some drought issues also what we learned in this class is over time all civilizations face Eternal tensions okay and these Eternal tensions can be divided into two U major tensions the first tension is a conflict among the classes okay so the idea of elite over production you have too many people striving for limited status right and the conflict is mainly between upper nobility and lower nobility okay and so here in the IVC we can imagine the conflict might be might be between these families that are large training houses is against families that are small training houses okay or it could be like internal internally among the families okay but there's going to be some social tension going on the other social tension that we discuss is the idea of rat Utopia where and especially conflict between the old and the young again the problem IBC is you have too many old people living for too long which means less opportunities arise for achievement for the Young okay and that creates conflict as well so what we believe that it also is that during this time there was massive social tension within the IBC and some people would even say it was a revolutionary time okay when o customs and om mors were being overthrown okay because of climate change the people in the indal culture now are forced to leave the steps because the steps are no no longer suitable for their lifestyle okay so they push into the Oxys valley civilization and over time they will assimilate it into themselves okay so um the idea here is this is not an intentional in Invasion okay it's not that you have a general you an army and they go into the oxy Val civilization and then they call conquer it okay it's more opportunistic where at first you're trading and as the ox Val civilization declines because of trade trading networks um because of the declining trading networks they will start to come in and push out the people and again the culture of the of these people is very aggressive so there are two strategies that they would employ the first strategy is they might wipe out Villages okay these Villages are depopulated anyway they come in and they everyone out which means they kill everyone the second strategy is to come in they'll kill all the men and marry all the woman okay and again this is a gradual process of assimilation cultural uh Conquest but it's not a military Invasion okay does that make sense now after the inal culture and the Oxys culture um merge this creates new civilization a new culture called Proto Indo Iranian okay why is it called that because now what they will do is they'll go south to the Iranian plateau and they will become eventually the Persian people okay and they will invent a new religion that becomes a great world world religion called Zoro aism Zoro aism comes from this uh merger of um the polar Iranian culture into the Iranian Plateau this is a process we call synchronization by the way synchronization where two major religions merge and share the same Gods there are three distinct characteristics of the Proto Indo Iranian culture that becomes Salient in the new Zoras religion okay the first is the use of a ritual drink called Som okay Som again you don't have to know this but I'm just telling you the cultural impact okay Som is comes from the Proto Indo Iranian culture second is the worship of fire okay fire rituals fires are used um heavily in uh the religious practice okay and as we know zorm does use a lot of fire rituals the last is uh horse sacrifice meaning that Warriors are buried with their horses and so this is an emphasis on the warrior culture of these people okay so that's what happens in Iran they they become the Persian people we will discuss the Persian people at a later Point okay not now but but I just want you to know this is what happened they these people will also push into the IVC and over time and this is a process that takes about 500 years they'll push out the uh indigenous people okay and then indigenous people move into South India where they merge with the folk culture the animism of the local people there okay and guys what's amazing about this is this process will create two two major world religions that are still um influential today okay the first we know as Hinduism Hinduism is the merger the sychronization of Proto indoan uh religion with the local IVC religion okay and as the IVC push itself this will create a new religion called Buddhism okay all right but Buddhism is just the major one there are others that are being created as well through this process right the others are being jism and Chism and again these are the major ones okay that are still with us today like basically this process created thousands tens of thousands of new religions all right so this is what happened it's not a military conquest it's not an invasion but it's a process of you can argue cultural genocide okay where new people come in and over time because they are aggressive expansion opportunity in culture they will eventually take over the culture okay mainly by um marrying the local woman because the people who come in are basically basically males okay they will marry the local woman and they will either kill or enslave the local men and and this is where we get the CES come from in India all right so so this is a more subtle explanation of the indoan invasion Theory okay and this is what Scholars today accept happen and again um what's really important is to avoid generalizations and simplifications because this is a process that took about 300 years 400 years and there are different Strategies employed by different people some of it was peaceful some of it was VI okay was a mix it's hard for us to generalize but the overall General effect is uh the creation of Hinduism and Buddhism which now are the two major world religions okay any questions but but thanks for the question EO any more questions before I move on a few but I think I'll save the end actually you can ask CU some time to to rest all right one question has toide IC y that's right and so I'm just wondering as as Traders like quite often trading involves enti Le involes whatever any evid that c am okay so uh that's a great question Doug okay so when you trade there's always a problem of piracy and benry right so how do you protect yourselves against that okay we know like Mesopotamia became violent because it was it was being surrounded by violence right the nomads in Arabia the nomads in the zos mountain we're all pretty violent people you had to be because to survive you have to be aggressive and opportunistic so how was it the um sorry the IVC was able to be peaceful yet at the same time trade and the solution is they set up colonies and trade Partners in order to facilitate trade okay so we know for example they traded heavily with the oxy civilization there were lots of trade agreements long-term trade agreements we also know they had a colony within the oxess value civilization okay we know um they traded heavily with a place called dilon which is now modern day ban okay so these are their main training partners and so you would think their training Partners were the ones who were responsible for local security okay um we can also suspect they also went to other places as well to seek new training partners what's important about this world is this is still a relatively peaceful world there's tremendous violence in Sumer but that's still rare right and there are some unique um characteristics about Sumer that make it a violent people but in this world and this is about 5,000 years ago people are still relatively peaceful organized Warfare is still uh new and rare in the human experience and that's why I think the experience in Mesopotamia was so shocking because the idea that you could uh sacka City the idea that you could kill hundreds of people at one time that's like breaking a massive cultureal taboo okay so I think culturally speaking people at this time prefer to trade rather than to fight and because they've been trading for such a long time we're talk talking like you know they start maybe trading about 7,000 000 BC they have a lot of trading networks around the world they have Partners who can trust basically okay okay any any more questions before I continue maybe one more but I might be anticipating a little yeah I'm actually moving into Buddhism okay but any more questions before I I continue okay so the last thing I want I want to discuss is what is the Legacy of the IBC they were great civilization um are they completely lost to us what is your contribution to Wern civilization so the legacy of Egypt are the pyramids right we know Egypt because of the pyramids the legacy of mopia are many they they met a lot of things like writing K form also they introduced world literature right the Epic of gilam mas what I want to argue uh now is the Legacy all the IVC is in their spiritual spiritual practice okay their spiritual um values so if you look at Hinduism okay it's very different from Zur asianism and that's kind of strange because they're both Proto Indo Iranian religions right but let's look very quickly at Hinduism Hinduism believes uh the reality we live in is false okay uh the real reality is called Brahman the true absolute reality so we live in this false reality as we live in this false reality um we collect karma karma is basically just an accounting of your good deeds and your bad deeds and guess what throughout your life you're going to accumulate more bad Deeds than you than your good deeds and your karma uh means your soul called the atmin is stuck here okay because Brahman it's pure you can you you can only return to Brahman to Heaven if you're a pure person so it will take many lifetimes for you to cleanse your soul your atmin in order to return to the Bratman this process of um cleansing your soul is what they call Dharma okay Dharma the right path um if you if the Dharma over thousands of lifetimes if your Dharma is correct if you achieved Dharma you will achieve what is called MSHA which is basically Liberation Moka releases you your soul from the physical world allows you return to the Brahman where you will live eternally in Paradise okay that is the um one of the basic ideas of Hinduism another really important idea of Hinduism is this entire process is being meditated or sorry mediated or gatekeep by priests called Brahman okay so you think being a good person is enough no it's not you have to listen to the Brahman because only the Brahman understands Dharma right and depending on who you are your dhma will be different so in uh Hinduism there's a hierarchy okay um at the very top are of course the priests the Bradman because they have access to spiritual knowledge below them are the Warriors and the Kings and then below them are the farmers and the merchants who keep the economy uh running and then at the very bottom are the servants and the laborers Okay now what's what's really interesting about the system is this system can be differentiated by the color of one's skin right because remember the Proto Indo Iranians they have white skin the IC culture the people who call the pro deenan no sorry the pro jinian okay they have darker skin so the IVC people of the lower class don't intermix with the um the poal Indo Iranians and so basically the poal Indo Iranians um accumulated and centralized power through the idea of Hinduism okay they're the priest class so that's a basic theory of Hinduism and again Hinduism is an extremely complex religion I don't want to over oversimplify it uh but I have no choice because I want to explain the differences okay so in this system who's really unhappy now in this system which group of people are like very upset with this system can you guys can you can can you guess Echo can you can you apply what we've learned in the semester and answer the question all these four groups Who's down happiest and who who most wants change or revolutionary change excuse me the lower nobility and who's the lower lower nobility in the system the Kings okay doesn't make sense the Kings actually in the system are the lower nobility the upper nobility are the brants because the up because it's the Brahman who can show access to the Brahman okay and so the Kings must obey the priests so the Kings aren't happy with this and so from this conflict you have the creation of Buddhism right remember s GMA who is considered a first first Buddha he was actually a prince before he became the Buddha and the man most responsible for spreading Buddhism in India and around the world his name is is shoka he was the king the emperor of the Moran Empire and he was the one who instit institutionalized Buddhism as state state religion who sponsored sponsored missionary projects to China to Greece to Egypt okay so these rulers don't like Hinduism because they see the Brahman class as a threat to their power so Buddhism follows this system except for one major difference you don't need the bramman to access Nirvana okay you don't need the brahans to access spiritual enlightenment you can do it by yourself through spiritual guidance by monks okay that's a major difference and as you can see Buddhism is in many respects a revolutionary religion to overthrow the power of the Brahman class and in response to Buddhism what did the brahmans do do you guys know they create the cast system okay after the rise of Buddhism Hinduism started to implement what we call today the cast system which is say these classes must separate from each other they are not allowed to intermingle they're not even allowed to touch each other they're not even allowed to touch each other's food okay these people at the very b or what we call today The Untouchables and this system was developed by the Hindu priests the Brahman and responds to the threat of Hinduism now over time because Hinduism like the Proto Iranian people are aggressive expansionist opportunistic they will defeat Buddhism in this struggle okay and the one way one really important way they defeat Buddhism is by adopting most of buddhism's um practices okay so like yoga meditation um and also Nirvana okay the Hindu ramens will adopt whatever is popular in Buddhism another thing that the Hindu priests will do is they will start um U basically assimilating other religions as well so most Indians throughout its history believed in their folk local folkl Gods right eventually all these Gods will be assimilated into the Hindu hierarchy that's why you have like a million gods in the Hindu religion okay because they were all over time assimilated into the hierarchy and obviously uh these gods are lesser Gods the higher Gods the Holy Trinity uh are Brahman Gods okay all right so now's a chance for uh Doug to to ask his question about Buddhism before I continue yeah yeah go back to the thec yeah um so Way Way Back months ago you you were talking about the pro indoeuropean langues that's right right and there's been a lot ofical that's right y you know there's been a similar proc process looking at the different Indian religions like Hinduism Buddism jism and is there a certain common denominator that perhaps could be faced back to okay great question okay so so what is the IVC religion the portal religion okay um I want to make an argument and again it's uh speculation it's a very strange argument and most Scholars probably will not agree I think the religion of the IBC is protab Buddhism and the reason why is if you look at jism and you look at Proto Indo uh Iranian the religion there are a lot of similarities okay and Proto zorm actually fits into the larger Proto Indo European religion framework when you look at Hinduism you've got this strange idea you a belief in karma Dharma reincarnation impermanence Brahma the Ultimate Reality like like this is not part of the protal Indo-European religion in anywhere okay so but the same time Hinduism Buddhism jism and Schism all share this fun fundamental belief in the world that this world is um a false reality it's a reality created by our false beliefs and if we learn to tame our emotions if we learn to to see the underlying reality governing all uh human structure then we will be released from this world okay now where would that come from that must have come from the IVC because there will be no other place also it explains why these religions have such huge followings in India right they don't have any followings anywhere else okay like Hinduism is basically localized to uh India so it's chanism so chanism so they are appealing to a fundamental sense of the world among Indians they're basically appealing to Nostalgia right right and and where is this noia from it must be from the IVC okay so I would make that argument I would I would I would believe I would bet that if we were able to construct the religion of the IVC the portal religion we would see a Proto Buddhism okay the beginnings of Buddhism it would be very different okay because Buddhism evolved over thousands of years but the underlying assumptions about the world um basically the idea of Oneness okay okay the idea of false reality I think these two ideas would be very apparent in the IVC as they are apparent now in all four major Indian religions Hinduism Buddhism jism and jism okay do you want to continue or no no no no no I'm finished but like like you want to respond to to my argument sense to okay and any are you guys following along does this make sense to you guys in fact I would argue that we as humans fundamentally have Nostalgia for these two ideas Oneness and false reality okay because if you look at the West okay if you look at us today there are two ideas that are the most powerful today in western civilization the first idea is Plato's allegory the cave right the idea that we live in a shallow world and the truth is out there but we have to seek it it's a very powerful idea right and it's very similar by the way to the ideas found in Hinduism and Buddhism okay the Alor of the cave is the first powerful idea and then the second powerful idea is the idea of the second coming the return of Jesus because what does the return of Jesus signify it signifies Paradise on Earth it signifies the destruction of our current reality and the replacement of a new reality that creates Oneness completeness and wholeness on Earth so in many ways um this is very similar to what the Indians are proposing as well so what this is saying is at a fundamental level everyone has Nostalgia for a distant past okay and what is this the distant pass the distant pass is the idea of animism so remember 10,000 years ago 20,000 years ago we were in the Ice Age we were hunter gatherers and the way we saw the world was very different from the way we we see the world today okay back then if you were a hunter gatherer you could only think you you were the same as the tree or as the animal okay it's idea of Oneness we're no different we're all part of the life cycle we're all part of uh Mother Nature okay the mother goddess all right we also believe we inhabit different realities at at the same time right we live in this world which is the material reality we we we're also inhabiting the spiritual reality as well and what we do spiritually matters a lot more than what we do M materially okay so we can and kill animals as long as we pay the proper respects to the animals we kill as long as we um contribute spiritually to the cycle cycle of life and death okay so I think that's where Buddhism comes from it comes from animism this Buddhism this PO Buddhism became reinforced and became much more concrete because it was experiencing a reality in Mesopotamia and Egypt that was abhorent to the people experiencing okay War goes against The Human Experience inequality and Corruption and ways goes against The Human Experience we fundamentally believe this to be evil and wrong okay so that that is my argument about the IVC any questions any comments you seem to believe are okay that's a great question um do I believe that human nature is fundamentally benevolent um I don't believe human nature is is benevolent I believe humans naturally see seek um a spiritual understanding of the world I think humans want to know why why are we here where are we going where do we come from okay we want to know why we also we're also curious we want to explore the world okay so I think trade is not a new invention I think it's a very inherent thing to human nature I think the idea idea of globalization this was a globalized world like 5,000 years ago okay extremely sophisticated complex Global globalized World so I think that's what makes us fundamentally fundamentally human okay and you can say this a good thing or a bad thing and I would say well it depends on the circumstance right but I think what drives us is humans is our curiosity and our um our imagination okay that's what I think being human is and sometimes this is a good thing sometimes this is a bad thing okay sometimes in the IVC this will lead to peace and egalitarianism but this also is what drives the idea of the second coming which is what's driving the conflict in the Middle East today okay so it depends on the context it depends on the circumstance if if this curiosity this imagination is channeled effectively then I think that's a good thing if it's Channel opport opportunistically then it's a a bad thing okay okay but thank thanks for the question any more questions okay um so this end our Branch age unit okay so we looked at the three major Branch age civilizations Egypt Mesopotamia and um IVC next class we'll start the Bible okay the Hebrew Bible all right